Believe
by Austin Blake
Summary: Angel's POV, at the end of the Angel Season 3 finale "Tomorrow" as he sinks down to his eternal prison. There's a spoiler right there. Maybe more inside. Angel reflects on his life, and remembers one good aspect. (Buffy/Angel)


DISCLAIMER: Ah hell, you know what's yours and what isn't...  
DEDICATION: Molly, the only girl I know who does Buffy justice...and yet, she no longer feels the need to oblige those who yearn for the carefree days of Buffy and Angel. She is the inspiration for all my Buffy/Angel shipper stories, fluff or otherwise. This is somewhat of a homage to her, and maybe, if she reads it, it'll persuade her to resurrect her fallen B/A faith.  
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Angel's POV, at the end of the Angel Season 3 finale "Tomorrow" as he sinks down to his eternal prison. There's a spoiler right there. Maybe more inside. Charles Dickens is also a partial inspiration.  
  
  
  
  
BELIEVE  
  
  
Life is a battle between the instinct to preserve and to love and the instinct to destroy.  
  
The only time my life wasn't a battle is when she was in my arms. For all the diabolical sinister qualities the demon inside me possessed, I had no desire or intention of destroying the strong yet so entirely delicate girl that I held in my embrace. I wanted to protect her, shield her from all the evils that she was destined to fight alone. She was more than human to me. When I first saw her, out in front of her high school all shiny and new to the real world, unsuspecting of what awaited her, I couldn't help but cringe deeper into my guilt-ridden darkness. She smiled a smile of pure sunshine. She was a princess, a goddess...I don't know what she was - anything that no one ever saw, and everything that everybody ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant. There was no pausing on the brink; no looking down, or looking back; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a word to her.  
  
So I watched.  
  
I watched her for months, not content to stay in the shadows, but afraid of contaminating such a pristine beauty with my presence. But eventually we grew closer...call it destiny, karma, the cataclysmic powers that are veiled by a vast universe that bring all events into play according to their own mixed up plan. We kissed, she saw what I was, and she feared it, abhorred it. Never in my almost three centuries of unlife had I ever felt so guilty, never had such a pain been driven through to the very core of my being than when I saw the look of horror on her face at my own twisted visage, a countenance made to induce terror, made by the very vile monsters she has been called to slay, made for consuming the blood of helpless innocents. She saw this, and I leapt from her window, too ashamed to explain that I had a soul. I think she wanted to hate me for what I was, for what I did. And she tried. But somehow, our attraction only grew stronger.  
  
///A vampire in love with a Slayer? It's rather poetic, in a maudlin sort of way.///  
  
///You were born to hurt her. Have you learned nothing? As long as you are alive...///  
  
I lost myself in her on her seventeenth birthday, and it cost me my soul. Perfect happiness is what she gave me, and in return, I tortured, maimed, and killed everyone she and her friends cared about.  
  
///The thing I remember most was thinking how artful it was. In the dark, they looked just like they were sleeping. It wasn't until I bent down and kissed them good night that I felt how cold they were. You grabbed me, and I thought, who would go to so much trouble to arrange them like that? But you see, that's what makes you different than other beasts. They kill to feed, but you took more kinds of pleasure in it than any creature that walks or crawls.   
Oh, God...  
Yeah, cry out. Make a scene. I was to be married that week, but then, as I recall, you knew that.   
It wasn't me.   
It wasn't you?   
A demon isn't a man. I was a man once.   
Oh, yes, and what a man you were. A drunken, whoring layabout, and a terrible disappointment to your parents.   
I was young. I never had a chance to...   
To die of syphilis? You were a worthless being before you were *ever* a monster.   
Stop it! Stop...   
I don't wanna hurt you, Angel, but you have to understand. Cruelty's the only thing you ever had a true talent for.   
That's not true.  
Shh. Rest. Rest. You mistake it for a curse, Angel, but it's not. It's your destiny. I'll show you. I'll show you...///  
  
She sent me to Hell to save the world, and God help me, I deserved it. I deserved to stay in those sulfuric depths and suffer the worst bestial tortures the likes of which even Angelus could never imagine. But I was brought back...  
  
///I bet half the kids down there are already awake. Lying in their beds...sneaking downstairs...waiting for day.   
Angel, please. I need for you to get inside. Th- there's only a few minutes left.   
I know. I can smell the sunrise long before it comes.   
I don't have time to explain this. You just have to trust me. That thing that was haunting you...   
It wasn't haunting me. It was showing me.   
Showing you?   
What I am.   
Were.   
And ever shall be. I wanted to know why I was back. Now I do.   
You *don't* know. Some great evil takes credit for bringing you back and you buy it? You just give up?   
I can't do it again, Buffy. I can't become a killer.   
Then fight it.   
It's too hard.   
Angel, please, you *have* to get inside.   
It told me to kill you. You were in the dream. You know. It told me to lose my soul in you and become a monster again.   
I know what it told you. What does it matter?   
Because I wanted to! Because I want you so badly! I want to take comfort in you, and I know it'll cost me my soul, and a part of me doesn't care. Look, I'm weak. I've never been anything else. It's not the demon in me that needs killing, Buffy. It's the man.   
You're weak. Everybody is. Everybody fails. Maybe this evil did bring you back, but if it did, it's because it needs you. And that means that you can hurt it. Angel, you have the power to do real good, to make amends. But if you die now, then all that you ever were was a monster. Angel, please, the sun is coming up!   
Just go.   
I won't!   
What, do you think this is simple? You think there's an easy answer? You can never understand what I've done! Now go!   
You are not staying here. I won't let you!   
I said LEAVE!  
No! No!   
Am I a thing worth saving, huh? Am I a righteous man? The world wants me gone!   
What about me? I love you so much... And I tried to make you go away... I killed you and it didn't help. And I hate it! I hate that it's *so* hard...and that you can hurt me *so* much. I know everything that you did, because you did it to me. Oh, God! I wish that I wished you dead. I don't. I can't.  
  
  
You almost went away today.   
We both did.   
Angel...I feel like I lost you...You're right, though. We can't be sure of anything.   
Shhh. I...   
You what?   
I love you. I try not to, but I can't stop.   
Me, me, too. I can't either.   
Buffy, maybe we shouldn't...   
Don't. Just kiss me  
  
  
Buffy, please. Just this once... let me be strong.   
Strong is fighting! It's hard, and it's painful, and it's every day. It's what we have to do. And we can do it together. But if you're too much of a coward for that, then burn. If I can't convince you that you belong in this world, then I don't know what can. But do *not* expect me to watch. And *don't* expect me to mourn for you, because...///  
  
I open my eyes, seeing the watery depths around me. This is my home, my future. Lorne told me the way I felt about Cordelia was mutual, but God, it can't be. I should be thinking about the betrayal of my son, the welfare of my companions...even Wesley for God's sake...but all I can think about is her. I've lost her so many times, and this time, she's lost me...and she doesn't even know. She doesn't know about my Shanshu...the day we shared that Time forgot...how much I love her...how much I wish that I had never walked away...she doesn't know any of how I feel. We were never meant to be parted, and when we need each other the most, I'm...God, too many things were left unsaid.  
  
A hard thump jars me to the right of the elaborately constructed coffin Connor made for me, and pain rushes through my left side. The cold rush of water swiftly begins to fill the small area that contains me, and I almost don't notice the icy liquid climbing to claim me. I see that a rock on the ocean floor has broken through the glass and torn through the mesh cage, it's jagged tip breaking one of the iron cables that bound me at my waist. I reach up, my cold, exhausted muscles straining through the ache provided by Connor's taser to break the bond at my chest. I faintly hear the snap, and utter agony results from my side. My ribs have to be broken, because I can feel fragments of bone swirling in the blood that flows out so freely into the water.  
  
I go under the water, struggling to free my feet. After an immense tug of war with the tightly wound strands of iron, it too gives. I escape through the hole created by the rock, standing on my own two feet on the ocean floor. The pressure bears down on me like a mountain, and I realize that I have no breath. I can't float. Swimming to the surface is going to take all my strength. For a moment, I don't believe I can do it.  
  
//I thought...I thought I'd never see you again. I can't leave you. I was wrong. I need you.//  
  
I leap as high as I can into the murky fluid, stroking my arms, swishing water beneath me powerfully, violently, desperately. I have to put some distance between me and the bottom. I have to reach the top. I have to see her again. I have to. I have to. That's the problem with the world today. No one believes in true love anymore.  
  
///I don't know what the Mayor was talking about. How could he know anything about us?   
Well, he's evil.  
Big time. He doesn't even know what a lasting relationship is.   
No.   
Probably the only lasting relationship he's ever had is with evil.   
Yeah.   
Big, stupid, evil guy. We'll be okay.   
We will.///  
  
I do.  
  
///You still my girl?  
Always.///  
----- 


End file.
